"Developer evangelist" offended by developer, tweets outrage, both are fired.

An incident at the annual Python developer conference has led to allegations of sexism, death threats, the firings of two people, and—apparently—multiple DDoS (distributed denial-of-service) attacks.

The strange saga began Sunday at the PyCon event in Santa Clara, CA, when Adria Richards, a developer evangelist for e-mail vendor SendGrid, overheard jokes being told by two developers sitting behind her during a session. The jokes were sexual in nature, she said. Richards proceeded to take a picture of the developers, then tweeted the photo and asked PyCon organizers to have a word with them.

The story ended with one of the developers getting fired, Richards getting fired, and an apparent denial of service attack against Richard's personal blog and against SendGrid. "Anonymous has reviewed the situation and rendered judgment using their collective wisdom and experience," wrote one anonymous poster in a manifesto. Could the story get any stranger?

Richards did not tell the developers that she was offended, saying in the comments on her blog post, "I didn't want to be heckled or have my experience denied." She initially decided to remain silent about the jokes, she wrote, until she saw up on the main stage a photo "of a little girl who had been in the Young Coders workshop." At that moment, "I realized I had to do something or she would never have the chance to learn and love programming because the ass clowns behind me would make it impossible for her to do so," she wrote.

After tweeting the pictures of the developers, she then wrote on Twitter, "Can someone talk to these guys about their conduct? I'm in lightning talks, top right near stage, 10 rows back #pycon." She also linked to PyCon's code of conduct, which says in part that "offensive jokes are not appropriate for PyCon." On her blog, Richards concluded, "Yesterday the future of programming was on the line and I made myself heard."

PyCon staff quickly spoke to the developers, who apologized, but the staff took no further action. PyCon described its response in a blog post yesterday:

On Sunday March 17th an incident occurred involving some inappropriate comments made during a crowded plenary session. Per the stated guidelines for attendees and staff, the issue was reported to the PyCon 2013 staff and resolved privately.

Both parties were met with, in private. The comments that were made were in poor taste, and individuals involved agreed, apologized, and no further actions were taken by the staff of PyCon 2013. No individuals were removed from the conference, no sanctions were levied.

PyCon values the privacy of all attendees above everything. Except in cases wherein law enforcement must or could be involved, all reports and actions taken are kept confidential by PyCon staff.

After the incident, PyCon updated its "Attendee Procedure for Handling Harassment" to encourage conference attendees to report such behavior privately. "Public shaming can be counter-productive to building a strong community. PyCon does not condone nor participate in such actions out of respect," the updated PyCon procedures say.

One of the developers was also fired by his employer, PlayHaven, which said the inappropriate comments were contrary to the company's dedication to gender equality. PlayHaven makes a financial platform for monetizing mobile games.

“Forking” and firings

A person going under the Hacker News name "mr-hank" claimed that he was the developer who was fired. He apologized for the jokes but said Richards misinterpreted the "forking" statement. The developers were discussing the process of forking code bases, not making sexual jokes, he said. "While I did make a big dongle joke about a fictional piece [of] hardware that identified as male, no sexual jokes were made about forking," he wrote, adding:

She gave me no warning, she smiled while she snapped the pic and sealed my fate. Let this serve as a message to everyone, our actions and words, big or small, can have a serious impact. I will be at pycon 2014, I will joke and socialize with everyone but I will also be mindful of my audience, accidental or otherwise. Again, I apologize.

The other developer making jokes, Alex Reid, was not fired.

PlayHaven CEO Andy Yang acknowledged firing the developer, writing, "PlayHaven had an employee who was identified as making inappropriate comments at PyCon, and as a company that is dedicated to gender equality and values honorable behavior, we conducted a thorough investigation. The result of this investigation led to the unfortunate outcome of having to let this employee go. We value and protect the privacy of our employees, both past and present, and we will not comment on all the factors that contributed to our parting ways... We believe in the importance of discussing sensitive topics such as gender and conduct and we hope to move forward with a civil dialogue based on the facts."

Richards' own blog was subsequently hit by a DDoS attack. VentureBeat also reports that Richards has been the target of rape and death threats on Twitter, although such tweets have apparently been deleted by Twitter.

The SendGrid website has also been unresponsive much of the day. The company has not confirmed the cause, although it's assumed to be a DDoS attack. (Hacktivist group Anonymous is supposedly behind it.) "Our SMTP and Web servers are currently down," SendGrid wrote in a status update. A few hours later, the company provided some good news: "We're now accepting mail via SMTP & Web API. The Website is up, and we're working to finalize this resolution." Business customers have complained about the outage impacting their operations.

Today, SendGrid fired Richards. In a Facebook post, SendGrid wrote, "Effective immediately, SendGrid has terminated the employment of Adria Richards. While we generally are sensitive and confidential with respect to employee matters, the situation has taken on a public nature. We have taken action that we believe is in the overall best interests of SendGrid, its employees, and our customers."

A further post from SendGrid CEO Jim Franklin a few hours later expanded on the company's reasons for firing Richards. "SendGrid supports the right to report inappropriate behavior, whenever and wherever it occurs," Franklin wrote. "What we do not support was how she reported the conduct. Her decision to tweet the comments and photographs of the people who made the comments crossed the line. Publicly shaming the offenders—and bystanders—was not the appropriate way to handle the situation.

"A SendGrid developer evangelist’s responsibility is to build and strengthen our Developer Community across the globe. In light of the events over the last 48+ hours, it has become obvious that her actions have strongly divided the same community she was supposed to unite. As a result, she can no longer be effective in her role at SendGrid."

Update: The original version of this story said Adria Richards found out about her firing on Facebook and left a comment on her employer's page threatening a lawsuit. It now appears that comment was written by an impostor, and not by the real Adria Richards.

Making genitalia jokes in public is never appropriate. Publicly humiliating someone instead of talking to them personally and then complaining about being fired without someone talking to you personally also seems inappropriate. Hopefully both of them will learn something from this.

I have a weird mixed reaction to this story. I'm feeling like (i) some people kinda need to learn how to act professionally at conferences and (ii) some other people kinda need to chill out.

Yeah, that's how I felt too. I also think if you've got a problem with someone, you should talk to them before you try to publicly shame them. No one needed to get fired over this.

Completely agree. If for no other reason, then to make sure what you heard was indeed inappropriate and not mistakenly taken out of context. I always like to give people the benefit of the doubt. If at that point, they still want to stick to being inappropriate or generally rude, then all bets are off.

I honestly think she should have handled it better, but on the flip side, a conference is still a professional environment which you should treat just like any other. Where inappropriate behavior is going to get you in trouble. I've been to my share of conferences and seen my share of people who treat it like it's a weekend at Vegas.

I'm of mixed feelings about this too. Richards pushed public shaming into vigilantism, cost someone his job, almost did the same to a second person, cost her (former) employer damages in both reputation and mindshare. Conversely, there is a time and place for jokes like that, if they were indeed jokes. That was not the time.

This whole thing could have been avoided had she just turned around and asked the guys to knock it off. Everyone would still have their jobs, and there wouldn't have been any DDoS attacks.

This is pretty dumb on both ends. Making jokes like that while listening to a conference is unprofessional. However to take a picture without consent and try to publicly shame the people joking is unprofessional, disrespectful and flat out uncalled for. The jokes were not directed at nor meant for her. She should simply have asked them to save it for after the conference, or to keep it down.

If you're feeling a mixed reaction to all of this that just means that you're a reasonable person being confronted with a situation that's far from cut and dry IMHO.

I don't think it's unreasonable to expect professional behavior from people attending professional conferences. There are places for joking around, and places where you need to be aware of your surroundings. That goes for all kinds of things, not just sexual humor.

There's also zero question that the tech world is full of sexist bullshit, and that women in the tech world are bombarded with it constantly.

The flip side is that reactions have consequences too. I'm really not comfortable with the idea that instead of either politely asking the two men behind her to tone it down, or alternately privately contacting the conference organizers that she chose to publicly shame them to her 10,000 followers. That's really an act of pretty serious aggression to me.

I'm not sure she deserved to be fired for that, but I'll be honest and say I'm not really surprised. Those aren't the kinds of actions you're looking for from someone you send as your evangelist to a conference.

I have a weird mixed reaction to this story. I'm feeling like (i) some people kinda need to learn how to act professionally at conferences and (ii) some other people kinda need to chill out.

Yeah, that's how I felt too. I also think if you've got a problem with someone, you should talk to them before you try to publicly shame them. No one needed to get fired over this.

What a fun story, so bizarre. The joker seems contrite, the girl seems a little out there: "Yesterday the future of programming was on the line and I made myself heard." Really? She was right to be offended, probably didn't handle it well, but kind of surprising outcomes all around, will be interesting to get future updates on the fallout.

1) Only men make sexual jokes and/or sexual jokes are inherently oppressive to women, even though Richards herself made sexual jokes on Twitter.

2) It is her, or the convention's duty to police a private conversation between 2 adults.

Is Richards trying to imply that sexual jokes are only ok if they come from one gender? Or is she suggesting that every single woman in the world is inherently offended by sexual jokes, and her own jokes are an act of hypocrisy? How would this situation play out if the joke was uttered between two women, or two LGBT people?

I always try to be mindful of whether I can be reasonably expected to be representing my employer when I speak in public. At a conference where badges can easily identify you (and possibly have your employer's name on them directly), you can be expected to be representing your employer.

This woman was only looking out for herself. She can make dick jokes on her work account, publicly, but has a problem with misinterpreted jokes being whispered in a crowd? Riiiiiiight. She wanted to seem high and mighty, and it blew up in her face. What a self righteous, disgusting, cowardly woman. Instead of being an adult, she cost someone their job. Being an adult woman deserving respect in an industry is great, this however is not how you get it. She notably embarrassed herself, she possibly ruined someone's career because she couldn't take a moment to act her age and instead went seeking glory. Glad it blew up in her face, she deserves worse.

"Yesterday the future of programming was on the line and I made myself heard."

Downvotes be damned, I'm glad that 'society's last beacon of hope' got smacked down from her white horse. She could have handled it like an adult and asked the men to stop, and proceeded from there. Instead, she took it upon her narcissistic-self to save the world from those evil men.

I don't agree with the overreaction of "the Internet", but just looking through her past tweets shows her to be an incredible hypocrite.

I do not know just how offensive the jokes were or the two guys were being. But making some assumptions, I would tend to be much more concerned about the person who would not confront you, but would take your picture, post it online, get you (and herself) fired.

Such a person is a lot more dangerous, in a real life way, than two guys telling slightly off color jokes.

Even someone who behaves professionally and is more quiet and private with such jokes should be concerned if they know such a person is in their vicinity.

The firing itself is an over reaction to something so minor. It's not like someone touched someone else inappropriately. A joke would have resulted in a verbal or possibly written warning in a lot of work situations, not a firing.

It's a shame.. neither one should have gotten fired, but both should have behaved more professionally.

Public opinion is a powerful tool. If you are not careful of how you wield such a weapon, it can easily destroy you. The developer was fired because the account was made public and known to all, but it seems that is the same reason Ms. Richards was terminated too.

If you're feeling a mixed reaction to all of this that just means that you're a reasonable person being confronted with a situation that's far from cut and dry IMHO.

I don't think it's unreasonable to expect professional behavior from people attending professional conferences. There are places for joking around, and places where you need to be aware of your surroundings. That goes for all kinds of things, not just sexual humor.

There's also zero question that the tech world is full of sexist bullshit, and that women in the tech world are bombarded with it constantly.

The flip side is that reactions have consequences too. I'm really not comfortable with the idea that instead of either politely asking the two men behind her to tone it down, or alternately privately contacting the conference organizers that she chose to publicly shame them to her 10,000 followers. That's really an act of pretty serious aggression to me.

I'm not sure she deserved to be fired for that, but I'll be honest and say I'm not really surprised. Those aren't the kinds of actions you're looking for from someone you send as your evangelist to a conference.

So two men are not allowed to make penis jokes to each other, but she's allowed to tweet penis jokes? I mean, that's what's bothering me here. They dudes don't seem to be on stage, they just seem to be making jokes between each other.

Also, I was waiting for the part where it explained what the joke actually was.

Regardless of the joke, she should not have publicly shamed them over a penis joke. She could have turned to them or talked to an organizer afterwards.

Also, find me ONE person in the tech industry, regardless of gender, who hasn't at least giggled at dongle.

You are there representing your company, going public in social media trying to shame a couple of cavemen is the LAST thing you do. Everything you do while on the clock for your company becomes your companies liability.

It would have been smarter if her company had fired her before getting DDoS'd wait till Adria gets doxed she is going to be a very sad puppy.

I have a weird mixed reaction to this story. I'm feeling like (i) some people kinda need to learn how to act professionally at conferences and (ii) some other people kinda need to chill out.

Yeah, that's how I felt too. I also think if you've got a problem with someone, you should talk to them before you try to publicly shame them. No one needed to get fired over this.

The guys probably overstepped a bit (but we don't know what the joke was, so we can only guess). But then she handled it horribly by going to Twitter with it. She went straight for the nuclear option, which you never do if you have any other choice. She could have confronted them. She could have gone to the organizers. Either approach would have been far batter, and actually have a chance of accomplishing something good.

Going to Twitter could only result in rage. She should have only even considered that option if confronting them failed, and the conference organizers didn't care. Then you have to start looking for alternatives (which hopefully still isn't Twitter).

Fucking disgusting. Eavesdropping and bitching about a private joke should be frowned upon, not taken seriously.

I have a new word in my vocabulary: PlayHaven -- a butthurt retarded employer who fires employees over a joke.

Are you being facetious or trolling? You do know that there is nothing private about a joke made in a public venue with others in very close proximity don't you?

If they wanted it private, they should have actually gone someplace private.

What if they were whispering? Would it be private then?

Granted, you should be careful and not say those kinds of things in that kind of venue at all, but if she happened to catch snippets of their whisperings to each other (which would explain the apparent misunderstanding about the nature of their code forking conversation), then I might say that yes, they were having a private conversation.